Are there squirrels in my attic?

The tabby cat lays curled beside me in bed. She is giving herself her nightly bath when we both hear the rustling. It sounds like someone is moving boxes in the room next door. Or maybe a pile of fall leaves are being raked up. Either way, both of our heads swivel in unison to the right. We stare at the corner of my bedroom and listen intently. There is nothing there. Her green eyes look at me and she returns to licking her paws. I go back to reading my book. The blanket is warm and her purring is soft. Soon we are both asleep.

Hours later, the light is still on when we are both woken again by the sound of scurrying feet. Or was that a branch falling off the roof? Perhaps it was a blanket of snow melting and sliding to the ground after a recent warm spell? That must be it. I turn off the light and we both settle down to a few hours of rest before dawn.

It's not long before we hear more racing above our heads. Is a tree scratching its branches against our house? Could there be a stiff breeze causing this sound? What is above our heads making this pitter patter? It's not for the first time that I wish my husband was on the second floor with me and not trapped on the first floor. In his hospital bed. Stuck in his own nightmare.

Now it is four in the morning and I am waiting for the aide to arrive. The Aide. His precious aide. The one he refuses the fire even though she sketches me out. She has a Cheshire cat grin. She makes comments about my husband, my home, my family and it's not okay. When she is judgmental and finds fault in us, it's not okay. When she goes through our cupboards and rearranges them to her liking, it's not okay. When she tells me that I am not allowed to use the washing machine and dryer because they are for her to use, it's not okay. When she decides her work hours instead of the other way around, I have a problem with this. However, my husband has fallen in love with her and now I have to live with this fact. He is in love with his aide.

But you know what, since he pays her to be his aide, doesn't this make her his prostitute? Heh, heh. Bet she doesn't see herself as a prostitute. I bet she thinks she is all that. I can see it in her eyes and in her grin. I can hear it in her tone and in her voice as she is talking with him. She comes two hours early in the morning just so she can sit and visit with him before she actually starts to get him ready to start his day. She brings him cakes and pies and meals from her house that she made just for him. She has to cook for him because the garbage his wife (=me) feeds him is just not good enough. (Her words, not mine)

So here the cat and I sit, waiting for the dreaded aide to show up. The air will shift as she comes closer to our house. I can feel the energy draining from me as her car drives ever closer. I can feel her presence even before she gets here. The feeling of dread and anxiousness and darkness is already here and she is probably still ten minutes out. But I can feel that dark presence coming. She is driving across the city and she is getting closer to walking in the front door. She will waltz in like she owns the place, and she won't even bother to take her shoes off. She will call out her good morning greeting, not caring that there are three other people sleeping upstairs.

The dog and the cat don't like her either. They love the other aides. They will come running to greet the other aides. Not this one. I love my pets. They are very loyal and astute creatures. They are excellent judges of character.

Christmas is coming. Every time I think or try to think about Christmas I begin to cry. I don't know if it is a COVID thing, or a living with a quadriplegic thing. Or, that my children are growing up and away thing. Or, maybe it is a little bit of all three. Or, most likely of all: it is a lot of all three things. I feel so alone. All the time. My children all take turns hating on my for - wait, there is a squirrel again. What is that noise?

It's not the dreaded smoke detector noise that usually chooses to lose battery power in the middle of the night. Smoke detectors are my nemesis. You can ask my husband. I have never met a detector that I can't kill. He has found many carcasses on the kitchen island. He tells me there are "easy open drawers" and "just pull this tab here" and "pull and twist to release" but these words are lost in the murky darkness. Why is it that batteries only need to be replaced at night time? I suppose it is a case of better late than never.

So, where was I? The children take turns hating...? Oh, take turns hating me for various reasons: not helping their dad enough, helping their dad too much and not being there for them, leaving their dad, staying with their dad; what is it going to be today? It is enough to make my head hurt all the time. No, not my head, my heart. My heart hurts and I just want to hug them and hold them and kiss them and make everything okay.

I want to be a family. I want to sit around our dining room table and eat dinner together. I want to play games: spoons, apples to apples, Risk. I want to bake and eat cookies together. I want to paint together and make messes together. I just want to be together. We are all we have. We are transplants. We don't have extended family here. There are no grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or anyone living in the area. We are all we have.

We are all we have.

We are one another's family. And I feel like I didn't create a family when they don't feel like a family and want to be together. They don't feel the importance of being together. They don't know that we all need one another and rely on one another for emotional support. They don't crave those dinners and times spent together. They aren't needing to create memories or recreate memories. They don't find solace in traditions; they think the traditions were dumb and stupid.

They have no interest in Christmas movies. Keep the decorations in the basement. Don't even turn on the holiday music. They don't care about Grandma's Christmas cookie recipes. Tree? Why put up a tree? It's just another dumb tradition and no one wants to decorate it anyway. Why isn't their sister coming home to help with the decorating now that it is up? The boxes that their dad had the two children bring upstairs the other day are still sitting in the hallway. Mocking anyone who dares to look at them. It is December 21. No one is going to open them. They will just go back to the basement untouched. Undisturbed. I am the only thing disturbed.

I think there are squirrels in my attic. Maybe they are looking for nuts. Like me.